Undone By Blood (The Vampire Flynn Book 5)

by Peter Dawes

“Your stalling is reason enough.”

  The vision ceased abruptly, bringing me back to the room with Robin alone. He waited patiently while I oriented myself again, his eyes on me the entire time until I finally focused on his gaze again. “They left something in Kilkenny,” I said once I found my voice. “They had been in a hurry to escape and forgot it.”

  “Did she say what?” Robin asked.

  “Notes of some kind. They failed to go into detail.” Lowering my hand from the wall, I used my pants to brush the plaster from my fingers, frowning at the white marks they left in their wake. While I focused on tidying myself, I ignored Robin, noticing the silence emanating from him only belatedly. “If only we could risk venturing there to investigate it further,” I said to fill the conversational gap. “But that would be climbing directly into the maw of the monster.”

  Robin failed to respond. When I peered up at him again, my hand still wiping the chalk from my clothing, I saw the expression on his face, his eyes distant as he appeared to be weighing something significant. I mirrored his frown, recognizing what he might be thinking right as his eyes shifted back to me and his gaze became conciliatory. “You cannot be serious,” I said.

  “The maw of the monster, yes, but the dragon has flown from his cave,” Robin countered. “You and I both know he wouldn’t trust it this late in the game.”

  “No, he would not, but surely he would expect us to come to Ireland looking for him. I know we said all of this could be a trap, but walking directly into his coven is begging to discover it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Yes, we observed that we’re dancing to his tune, but following along isn’t altogether a bad idea.” When I sighed, he held up a hand to stop me from commenting. “No, hear me for a moment, Peter. I’ve known this man for over a century. I promise you, if he wants us to follow his path, he will also leave insight along the way if we’re canny enough to look for it. It’s worth us risking once.”

  “And if the worst does happen, you are trusting me centered enough to protect us?”

  “I trust that whatever he wants from you, he hasn’t gotten it yet. Regardless of what happens, he’d never kill me and he needs you too much. This means we’d at least live long enough to figure out what to do next.” Robin nodded toward the exit. I followed obediently while questioning my sanity in being willing to do so. “I will say this much, if he captures us, we’ll have reached the next portion of whatever bloody game this is he’s playing.”

  Nodding, I drew a deep breath inward. “I am caught between the urge to agree and the inclination to chide you for using the word ‘bloody’.”

  “By now, I think I’ve earned the right to do so.”

  We left the abandoned building, walking out to the street and pausing to call for a taxi before resuming our conversation. As we sat inside a café, Robin with a cup of tea and I, nursing a coffee, I called Evie Stanton at Robin’s behest. “I do not know why my better judgment has failed me,” I said to her, “But I need transportation to Kilkenny, Ireland. We have a lead we wish to follow.”

  “Should I bother asking why your better judgment should be telling you otherwise?”

  “Because our friend, the mastermind, used to operate out of Kilkenny.”

  “You’re not much good to us dead, Peter.”

  “Neither am I to the mastermind, for what it is worth.”

  “That is begging for a longer discussion than I have time to entertain tonight.” Evie sighed and in the pause which followed, I heard her weighing the decision before she finally spoke. “Alright, I’ll send the plane to Budapest. Will I have my assistant booking you a room while she’s at it?”

  I glanced at Robin, who shook his head. “No, I think our plan is to get in and out as quickly as possible. There’s a difference between chancing fate and being foolish and we are attempting not to do the latter.”

  “Your better judgment would undoubtedly argue otherwise.” A brief pause. “Get yourselves to the airport and we will ensure somebody there to pick you up within the hour. You might not have enough night left to chance your expedition, so I suggest rooming in Dublin, to stay on the safer side. We can shuttle you from Kilkenny if needs be.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, exchanging goodbyes with her and hanging up my phone. Robin frowned into his cup of tea and finished it without speaking, leaving me to polish off my beverage in silence. I watched what appeared to be Robin shoring himself up, honoring whatever space he needed to prepare for our expedition. As such, it came as a surprise when he started to speak later, with us sitting in the jet on opposite sides of the aisle again.

  “Nearly a decade ago that he called me in Bucharest and asked me to return home,” he said, referencing Patrick. I perked an eyebrow and shifted to face him, abandoning the Scotch I had only been sipping in favor of listening to his story. His pale blue eyes focused on images only he could see, tempting me again to violate my cardinal rule. My inherent hatred of Patrick spared me from any serious consideration of it, in the end.

  Robin continued after a brief pause. “He was at the train station to receive me and greeted me with a kiss,” he said, “As if it had been far longer than twenty-five years since the last time we had seen each other. At one point in our long history, we had not spoken for nearly thirty. It surprised me, how bold he had become, when he used to be anything but.”

  “He did not strike me as an overly affectionate person,” I commented. “Except for when it came to you.”

  “And that never used to be the case. We’ve had our torrid affairs. I would even say a bond of friendship born not merely from our human years. His was the first place I went to when Ilya died and each time our paths intersected, we spared a few nights’ time to spend together. I always considered him a fixed point, somewhere in the background, where I could turn at any moment.

  “But he showered me with affection and demanded I spend the day with him when I arrived back home. At times, he would disappear on what he called ‘coven business’ and some nights, he would be more sullen and moodier than normal. Even then, though, there would be a moment in the evening when he would curl close to me and talk like a long-lost lover. It took only a week past my return for him to claim he’d loved me the entire time, holding back only because I would never be rid of Sabrina. I would have never thought him the one clinging onto her.”

  His eyes developed a shimmer. A bitter laugh passed through his lips. Robin gazed more heavenward for a moment before peering downward again and only then did I realize what he was attempting to do. He had laid his pain bare for me, spreading it out to show the bleeding he kept tucked behind the façade of a composed gentleman. I watched him reach to swipe away a tear before it could mark his face and frowned out of concern. “I let myself love him,” he said. “For the first time in a century, I forgave him everything he had done to me. He constantly ran from me. He scorned me twice when I let my heart be swayed by Sabrina and I told myself it was for the best that we never truly become lovers. And at the very moment I believed him, he proved himself to be a liar.”

  “Perhaps not a liar,” I said, surprised even at myself for daring to sympathize with the spawn of Satan who held my wife in his thrall. “A man of divided loyalties who chose against you, however.”

  “Yes, perhaps that.” Robin drew a shaky breath inward and shut his eyes, as if to collect himself again. When he finally peered toward me, I watched him attempt a smile. “Betrayal is a double-edged sword. It cuts once for harm inflicted against you and again for the trust you granted them in the first place.”

  “That I could feel betrayed. That might make even part of this better.”

  Robin nodded, the small curl of his lips turning sympathetic. I offered him as much silent gratitude as my expression would allow and welcomed the silence this time, neither fighting the hollowness inside of me, nor giving it permission to exist.

  Instead, I waded through the remainder of the night, apt to tell stories of the past ten years in part to occupy some w
himsical form of fantasy again. Robin listened with rapt attention, reciting the names of my children again as if caring enough to finally commit them to memory. When the plane descended into Ireland, the hour had grown late and while we still had a few hours before sunrise, I silently thanked Evie for her foresight. Failing to sleep for the better part of the day, I spent the waking hours in silent reflection.

  The tears failed to come, like Robin had shed on the flight to Dublin, and while a burst of loneliness managed its way inside of me, a premonition warned it would only get worse. When I rescued Monica, it said, I would have the grave responsibility of leading her back to herself, and when emotion resurfaced, this meant bereavement would as well. I wanted to embrace Robin’s prompting, but I could not beyond the small fire one thought lit within me. I did not have my wife beside me, but I still had her leading me onward, as my pearl of great price.

  Even then, the pangs of hunger lingered.

  This time, I ignored them when Robin woke, apt to face the consequences of not feeding my bloodlust rather than allowing it to get the better of me. As he and I prepared for our expedition into Kilkenny, an undertone of grave sobriety came over us, following us to where we procured a rental car and drove down the highway toward Robin’s hometown. I commented to him about the choice in travel, attempting levity when I recognized my incident in the Dublin train station.

  “Perhaps best not to chance being recognized, considering the mess I made,” I said.

  “Yes, especially without being able to clean it ourselves,” Robin responded, settling back into the somber tone of the night. Long silences marked the hour drive to Kilkenny, near which we paused to remove my weaponry from the trunk. As I settled back into my seat holding my sword, I opened myself up toward the energy pulsing in the air around us. While I failed to feel Patrick, I could not help but to notice what lingered of his presence. Perhaps even of others I had failed to recognize while here. Harboring the paranoia of missing an entire coven filled with dark sorcerers, I watched the landscape pass outside the window. When I realized where we were headed, I turned toward Robin and perked an eyebrow.

  His eyes remained fixed on the road in front of us, however – his posture stoic as if he could not see my skepticism in his periphery. We pulled from the main street onto the narrower road leading up the hill to his old cottage. When we parked outside the quiet domicile, he shut off the car and finally granted me his attention. “Let me go inside,” he said. “Stay by the door to guard me, in the event someone is watching.”

  “Very well,” I said, too curious to dissuade him. We stepped out of the vehicle, both shutting our doors as silently as possible. An intermittent breeze blew open my coat in moments when it decided to gust, but otherwise, the night remained still; the unease which had greeted me in Kilkenny little more than lingering embers. Robin trod carefully toward his cottage, extracting a different set of keys from his pocket and inserting one into the lock. As he twisted it, however, the door wobbled open, like it had been left unlocked by him before our previous departure.

  Robin and I exchanged a look. He pushed on the wooden obstruction to allow us to enter and although I had been commissioned to keep watch, I joined him inside, afraid that the possible attack might happen from within. His foot caught something near the entryway and after stepping over it, he motioned toward a lamp and switched it on, flooding the room with light.

  I mirrored his frown as I beheld the state of his house.

  “What in the heavens happened here?” Robin asked.

  It was a question spoken more out of confusion than a genuine desire to be answered. As such, I held my tongue, following him and shutting the door while allowing my eyes to jump from one upended fixture to the next. It looked like Robin had been the victim of a robbery, though the fact that his bookshelves had been violated with the most prejudice confused me. My brother strode toward them as if asking himself the same question, pausing in front of a stack of journals and bending to pick one up.

  “He must have been looking for something,” he said, shutting the book and gingerly sliding it back where it belonged. I thought for a moment he might repeat the process with the rest of the debris, but he walked over it, crouching to study some of the papers which had fallen out of the tomes, but otherwise leaving them alone. Taking a deep breath, he peered up at me from his position while exhaling slowly. “Unless this was her handiwork.”

  “Hard to say,” I muttered, finally gesturing to strap my sword into place to free up both hands. I strode with just as much care over to where Robin stood while giving the pile my own appraisal. “What might Patrick have been looking for?”

  “Who’s to know? Without having any idea what machinations he’s been up to, he could be looking for any number of things.” Robin lifted to a stand, both hands settling on his waist. As he shook his head, I saw a spark of resignation in his eyes. “His motives are unclear and Sabrina could simply be throwing us off our game. We could spend hours here and not divine their intent.”

  “Should we fetch what you came here for, then, and consider cleaning this a task for another time?”

  “I doubt now that I’ll find it.” His frown became more pronounced, his eyes scanning the wreck while his arms fell limp to his sides. “Perhaps you can do that trick of yours where you touch the wall.”

  “As you wish.”

  Taking a deep breath, I strode to the wall nearest to me and pressed my hand against it. Immersing myself within the energy of the room, I attempted to summon a mental picture much the same as I had in Vienna and Budapest. This time, however, a barrier sprang up, obstructing my second sight, emerging from what seemed like out of nowhere. I attempted to push back against it. When I did, however, it delivered a mental jolt that forced me away from the wall, my temples throbbing in agony.

  Doubled over, I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead and shut my eyes, waiting for the pain to abate. Robin’s movements ceased and I felt the weight of his gaze. “What is it?” he asked.

  “I cannot use my gift,” I said, wincing when another knife stabbed at my brain. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stand straight despite the way my head protested. “Whatever it is they did here, they do not want us knowing about it.”

  “Not yet anyhow. Which confirms our suspicion that they’re directing the steps we take.” He paused. “Are you alright?”

  “With any luck, I will be.” Opening my eyes, I beheld my brother through a haze, blinking a few times to clear my vision. As my arm lowered to my side again, I frowned. “They must not have counted on us coming to Kilkenny.”

  “Or we have yet to find the trap they set for us. One of the two.” Robin shook his head, stepping over the piles of debris and taking a place beside me. “We can give you a moment to regroup before we drive to Patrick’s coven, but it should probably be elsewhere.”

  He wrapped an arm around my waist, allowing me to lean on him for support until I found my footing again. We emerged from the cottage and as he fished for his keys again, I allowed myself to drift from his side, removing my sword so I could collapse into the passenger side seat of the car. It took a few lingering seconds before I found the ability to shift enough to shut the door, but the waves of pain had already started to abate. En route to the coven, I collected myself enough to continue.

  Still, Robin insisted we pause near the center of town, in a populated area so we could find safety in numbers. While he fetched a cup of coffee for me, I scanned the humans who passed on their way to whatever entertainment the evening had in store for them. Once I had a warm mug to clutch, I became fixated on the symphony of pulses around me, aware that the urge to feed from one had made an unwelcomed visit. In my periphery, I saw Robin sit in the chair across from me.

  “You look on the verge of starvation lately,” Robin said, breaking me from my hypnotic obsession. I looked at him as he nodded toward the people passing the café in which we sat. “Considering I witnessed your last feed, I can’t chalk it off to
poor eating habits.”

  “Forgive me. I have been peckish. I think it has to do with how much I have been using my powers lately.” Out of habit, I lifted the cup to my mouth and took a sip. “We should be going, before it gets too late for us to summon Evie, should the need arise.”

  “Five more minutes. Then, I will agree.”

  Nodding, I slowly worked on finishing my coffee. Even though my thoughts remained vacant, my teeth remained on edge and when I could endure it no longer, I set the mug down and announced we should be on our way. Robin acquiesced, though I could see in his eyes I had not convinced him I was in any proper state of mind for what we would have to do. Still, I managed to find some mental clarity by the time we ascended the driveway leading to Patrick’s modern-looking estate.

  Despite knowing it would be empty, the omen it radiated immediately made me tense.

  With some brazen acceptance that we had crossed into real and present danger, Robin pulled up to the garage and on the blacktop directly outside. We both emerged from the vehicle almost simultaneously again, as if our actions had been choreographed and predestined by some higher power. I strapped the sword to my side and strode with him to the front door, a chill afflicting me which looked like it jumped from me to Robin.

  He reached out his hand before I could and attempted to twist the knob. While it did not shutter open as his cottage door had, it swung ajar without any need for us to force it. Robin entered ahead of me, but once I had crossed the threshold, he stepped aside to allow me to take the lead. “I suppose the best place to start is Patrick’s office,” he suggested, whispering the directive as if someone had stayed behind to eavesdrop on us.

  Nobody had, however. I nodded and crept toward the stairs, following the mood set by my brother, but nothing about the immediate area suggested anybody still lived in here. Moonlight from the ample-sized windows provided the only guidance our vampire eyes needed to navigate to the second floor, but even then, I did not trust the silence enough to switch on a light. We felt exposed without anything empirical to lend credence to our paranoia. And still, neither Robin nor I seemed apt to surrender it.